Venture Challenge winners awarded in international competition

It’s all about cryogenic electron microscopy and an unexpected victory for the successful research group at Uppsala University. After six intensive months, the team stands as the overall winner in a major international competition—a win that not only proves their method works, but also opens up new possibilities in protein analysis. Meet Gabriel Ducrocq, a researcher affiliated with Sebastian Westenhoff’s group at Uppsala University.

A competition of this caliber spans a long period of time—in this case, a full six months. Overcoming such a major challenge requires a team with cutting-edge expertise and experience across several different fields. Yet, that is not enough. In addition, and perhaps most crucially, it requires the ability to collaborate—something the research group led by Gabriel Ducrocq did better than anyone else.

 

A well-rounded team was crucial

“Our team has developed a completely new workflow that changes the possibilities for what can be done. We started with an idea and boosted it with biochemical knowledge. That kind of approach requires effort, time, and determination. The result? Fantastic,” says Gabriel Ducrocq, PhD.

Winning the CAHRA Challenge 2026, conformational heterogeneity category, has meant a great deal to the team. It has brought great publicity, new contacts, and increased interest from more people wanting to use the method in their work.

“What we have developed is a brand-new machine learning workflow for protein analysis. Winning is fantastic fun and a great validation that what we can offer is a method that works.”

 

New and improved analyses

The advantage of the newly updated, award-winning workflow is that it offers new opportunities to perform better analyses, as it delivers information that increases understanding of both how a protein moves and which molecules can target a protein. Already, the team is gearing up to present the method to interested researchers when SciLifeLab organizes a workshop in cryo-EM.

With images and information about target proteins, drug candidates can be tailored.

 

A great opportunity for researchers to test the method

“It will be interesting to hear more about what the researchers interested in our technology are working on and what questions they want answered. During the workshop, we will help install the system and assist participants in using it. For us, it is a great opportunity to evaluate the system and, not least, learn more about researchers’ needs so we can refine and expand the system.”

Continued development work For the team behind the system, there are more challenges to tackle. Among other things, this involves reaching out to more stakeholders who want to test the workflow—not least Big Pharma, the major players in the field. It also involves continuing to develop the system, which comes with costs. Working to raise more capital is therefore another important part of the road ahead.

“Our sights are set both on finding more investors and, in the near future, signing our first paying customer to the company. Ideally, this would be one of the major players in the industry that acts as an important influencer in this field.”

The collaboration with UU Invest has been, and continues to be, an important part of the company’s progress moving forward.

 

Collaboration with UU Invest provides key advantages going forward

“We are researchers at heart, so the collaboration with UU Invest means a lot to us. We feel strong support and truly appreciate the partnership we have together. It means a great deal and brings vital knowledge into the project.”

Another initiative that has meant a lot to the team behind Cryosphere and their development work in cryogenic electron microscopy is their participation in Venture Challenge—an opportunity that Gabriel gladly recommends other researchers explore if they also want to take their research further and turn it into useful products or services.

Read more about Gabriel Ducrocq and his team here: https://gabriel-ducrocq.github.io/cryosphere.github.io/

If you would like to know more about Venture Challenge, please contact Mateo Santurio, UU Invest.